ARTICLES ABOUT INVESTIGATION BY DATE - PAGE 5

With his sudden retirement Monday, former state Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery did more than end his tenure on the high court. He also shut down an ethics investigation with the potential to strip him of his lucrative state pension. In exchange for his ouster, his colleagues on the court agreed to drop their order that the state Judicial Conduct Board say within 30 days whether there was evidence to bring misconduct charges against him. That board had launched its own investigation of McCaffery even before the high court issued its order.

Philadelphia police Monday were investigating a North Philadelphia home invasion in which several Temple University students were tied up and robbed at gunpoint. Police said that around 7:30 Sunday night, two men followed a 20-year-old student into his house on the 1900 block of North 18th Street and robbed him and several students inside: a 19-year-old woman, a 19-year-old man, and four 18 year-old women. At least six people were bound with zip ties, police said. The 20-year-old student was pistol-whipped in the head and later was treated for minor injuries at Hahnemann University Hospital.

The Somerset County, N.J., prosecutor said Friday that the four children of Cooper Hospital chief executive John P. Sheridan Jr. and his wife had no involvement in their deaths. Prosecutor Geoffrey D. Soriano, in a statement released to The Inquirer, said, "At this point in our investigation, we are very confident that the four sons of John and Joyce Sheridan played no role in the death of their mother and father. " John Sheridan, 72, was pronounced dead at the scene of a Sept. 28 fire at the couple's home in Montgomery Township.

A former member of New Jersey's cabinet, adviser to three governors, and chief executive of Camden-based Cooper University Health System, John Sheridan lived a life of public service and prominence. It makes for a jarring contrast with the secrecy that has surrounded his death. Sheridan and his wife, retired schoolteacher Joyce Sheridan, were pronounced dead on Sept. 28 after authorities were dispatched to a fire at their Somerset County home and found them unresponsive. Three days later, the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, which is leading the investigation, announced that the fire had been intentionally set. Over the two weeks since, however, the office has provided virtually no additional information, confronting the legitimate public interest in these disturbing and untimely deaths with little but silence and stonewalling.

Philadelphia police are investigating an alleged sexual assault involving an 11-year-old girl and three of her male schoolmates, they said Friday. One allegation is that the girl was forced to engage in a sexual act with two 13-year-old boys after being blackmailed, police spokesman Lt. John Stanford said. A third boy allegedly filmed the encounter and posted it online, he said. The four students all attend William Tilden Middle School in Elmwood, he said. The school's principal learned of the incident Thursday and reported it immediately to police, he said.

Nearly two weeks after Cooper University Health System chief executive John P. Sheridan Jr. and his wife, Joyce, were found in their home, authorities have released few details about their deaths. Several days after the fire in the couple's Central New Jersey home, the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office said it was deliberately set. Sheridan, 72, and his wife, 69, were found unresponsive in the second-floor master bedroom of their Montgomery Township home early Sept. 28. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and she was pronounced dead a short time later at a nearby hospital.

Philadelphia police are investigating the spray-painting of a racial slur on a Catholic high school in Spring Garden. Police were alerted to the offensive graffiti when someone sent a photo to CBS3 News over Twitter around 1:45 a.m. Thursday, showing the slur painted at an entrance to John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls' School. Police said the graffiti had been painted overnight. A maintenance worker at the school told police the entrance had not been vandalized when he left around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Collins under investigation Actor Stephen Collins , best known as the Rev. Eric Camden on the WB's long-running family show 7th Heaven , is being investigated by New York City police on suspicion of child molestation, Fox News and Variety report. "There is a formal complaint on file and the incident is being investigated by the Manhattan Special Victims Squad," an unnamed law enforcement official told Fox News. Amid news reports Tuesday that he admitted on tape to molesting three children, Collins withdrew from his costarring role in the comedy Ted 2 (Variety says he was fired)

TATTLE hates to lead with stories we can't have any fun with, but this Stephen Collins story is too twisted . . . and creepy. The 67-year-old "7th Heaven" star (and he played a reverend) is under investigation in New York for sexually abusing children. According to TMZ.com, New York police are reviewing an audiotape made by Collins' estranged wife, Faye Grant , during a therapy session, in which the actor mentions two underage victims in New York and one in L.A. "There is a formal complaint on file and the incident is being investigated by the Manhattan Special Victims Squad," a NYPD statement said.

In the call center at Philadelphia's Veterans Affairs benefits office, employees pull tarps over their computers when it rains, witness vermin infestations in their workspaces, and watch their breath crystallize and fingernails turn blue in the winter, federal investigators visiting the office this summer found. Doors are unsecured in the converted warehouse, which holds the call center and its 150 employees alongside non-VA offices, raising concerns about the security of veterans' personal information, according to a report from the VA Office of Inspector General.